0800-SMOKEY A Smoke-Screen Hiding Lack Of Action?
posted 30th August 2000

The price of petrol has forced the issue on cars. Its a sad fact but true that despite the huge environmental and social problems of private transport vehicle production, use and disposal, it takes a price rise to cause people to reflect and act. Yet despite much public heated debate New Zealand appears to be way behind on vehicle emission standards. 0800-SMOKEY just doesn't cut it. Why is New Zeland not represented in the list of countries actively negotiating vehicle standards? An international agreement to develop globally uniform environmental regulations for motor vehicles took effect Monday.

The agreement, pending for the past two years, was developed under the guidance of the United Nations to help "harmonize" the world¹s automobile standards. U.S. studies show that vehicle emissions now account for 75 percent of the carbon monoxide, 33 percent of the carbon dioxide, and 44 percent of the nitrogen oxides in the urban air. When written, these regulations will help to uniformly provide greater environmental protection, energy efficiency, vehicle safety and pollution reduction from automobiles for countries who are members of the United Nations. The agreement was approved in 1998, but could not be enacted until it was signed by eight countries. In July, the Russian Federation became the eighth country to sign the agreement, just six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin took power - and two months after Putin disbanded the country¹s state committee for environmental protection.

The United States was the first to sign the agreement, followed by Canada, Japan, France, England, the European Union, Germany and Russia. The Republic of South Africa has signed the agreement, but still has to ratify it to become a Party. The government of Spain has also decided to sign the agreement. Uniform regulations are expected to improve the safety, environmental protection, energy efficiency and anti-theft performance of road vehicles and at the same time, reduce manufacturing costs. New global vehicle regulations are expected to include aspects of existing national and international regulations, including those contained in an earlier global automotive standards agreement - the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) Working Party on the Construction of Vehicles, created in 1953.

The global standards will also cover farm equipment like tractors.. .